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Stepping up to difficult conversations: What my grad students would tell you

I wanted to know what my students would tell others about the act of stepping up to a difficult conversation, now that they had, albeit by force of assignment, completed their own. Here’s what they told me:

It wasn’t remotely as difficult as my worst fears anticipated it to be.

It’s freeing. It releases you from something holding you down or holding you back.

Stepping up with intention makes you a better person, helps you find a center in a chaotic world.

You shouldn’t be afraid to step up and look into the big black hole. You will not lose yourself in that hole!

You won’t be alone in that conversation for more than a heartbeat, because the other will join you fully when you know how to do it. They’ve been waiting, too.

It’s empowering because you’re deciding not to be a victim of the conflict.

At the other side of the conversation, I found myself—the person I had lost for all the years I had avoided that conversation.

At the other side of the conversation, I found myself. Can there be anything more powerful than that?

I’m humbled by what my students did, because sitting there in that classroom with them, I could see that they had really, truly stepped up. They had spoken up and gotten to the heart of what mattered. They had made a difference in their own lives and in the lives of another person. And in mine.

What difficult conversation have you been avoiding and how can I help?